The Diplomat
The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has created a working group made up of former ministers and other PP experts on foreign affairs to deal with the Spanish Presidency of the EU in case his party wins the early general elections on July 23.
As reported by Feijóo himself in Brussels, the group is made up of four members of the governments of José María Aznar and Mariano Rajoy: the former Ministers of Foreign Affairs Ana Palacio and José Manuel García-Margallo, the former Minister of Education and former Secretary of State for the EU Íñigo Méndez de Vigo and the former Minister of Agriculture and former European Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete.
Also part of the team are Ramón Gil-Casares, ambassador and former Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; Pablo García-Berdoy, permanent ambassador to the EU under Rajoy and Pedro Sánchez; Ildefonso Castro, former Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; Nicolás Pascual de la Parte, former ambassador to NATO, former ambassador for Cybersecurity and former presidential advisor on international affairs; Javier Rupérez, former ambassador to the US and former MP; José María Robles Fraga, former ambassador and MP; José María de Areilza, professor of EU Law at Esade, and Popular MEPs Dolors Montserrat and Gabriel Mato.
Núñez Feijóo traveled yesterday to Brussels on the occasion of the meeting of the European People’s Party (EPP) prior to the European Council, which will conclude today and in which the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, participates. In the EU capital, the leader of the PP held bilateral meetings with the President of the European Commission, Von der Leyen, the President of the EPP, Manfred Weber, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Vice-President of the Italian Government, Antonio Tajani.
During the press conference following the EPP meeting, the leader of the PP expressed his “firm commitment” to work to make the Spanish Presidency a success and, as a “convinced pro-European”, to make the European semester “a matter of State” that involves “the whole country”. For this reason, he called for a permanent and specific working group for the Presidency because “we cannot waste a single minute or allow a possible change of government to affect our image as a country”. Likewise, Feijóo once again regretted that the Government has not informed him or called him to any meeting to inform him about the work of the Spanish Presidency in the Council. “I have had more information from the Swedish Prime Minister about his country’s presidency than about mine,” he complained.
As was to be expected, the coincidence of Feijóo and Sánchez in Brussels has allowed the electoral pre-campaign to be transferred to the EU capital. In his statements prior to the European Council, the President of the Government assured that the fact that Spain is the first EU country to reduce its inflation below two percent (1.9%, its lowest level since April 2021) shows that the Spanish economy “is going like a motorcycle” despite the impact of the war in Ukraine. However, he warned that this “motorcycle” could “seize up” in the event that the PP “repeals” the government’s economic measures should it win the elections. “The sensible thing to do, what common sense brings us, is not to repeal what works,” he declared. “The Spanish economy is the fastest growing economy in the EU, we are creating jobs like never before and we are lowering and controlling prices like no one else,” he added.
As expected, Feijóo was quick to respond to Sánchez’s words by assuring, during the EPP meeting – in which he announced his intention to change the recovery plan agreed by the Government with Brussels – that the Spanish economy “is a motorcycle that does not work” because of the “poor execution” of European aid.
